Media Language and Representation
Key Terms: Page 14
- Forms: Different types of media
- Platforms: Ways of communicating to an audience
- Products: What media produces, e.g video games/T.V/ movies
- Encode: Communicating ideas with systems and signs
- Decode: How audiences interpenetrate a message
- Codes: Signs within media that give meaning
- Effect: Impacts that codes have on the audience
- Close ups: Creates emotion and tension
- Extreme close ups: Creates suspense or draws attention
- Long Shots: Used when more info is required and enhances understanding
- Medium Close ups: 'Newsreader shots' related to the news genre
- Establishing shots: A rapid way of advancing the narrative, raises the audiences expectations and enhances the audience pleasure
- Production Value: The features of a media product that illustrates how much it cost to make
- Hand held camera: A filming style where a Steadicam or tripod isn't used, giving a jerky style that suggests realism
- High angle shot: makes the character or object appear vulnerable or insignificant
- Low angle shot: makes the character or object appear powerful and dominant
- Tracking shot: When the camera follows the character or action, makes the audience feel involved in the action.
- A Zoom: When the camera moves from from a long shot to the subject, allows the audience to see more clearly
- A Panning Shot: When the camera moves across the scene, so it can impart information to the audience
- A Tilt Shot: When the camera moves vertically from top to bottom or vice versa, it can be used imply mystery with a character
- Editing: The way in which the shots are put together to create an effect
- Transitions: The way shots move from one into the other
- Graphics: A precise type of design, e.g: computer generated images in games
- Layout and Design: How print text is constructed: e.g: colour, font, photos
- Camera Shots: How the camera shots portray the meaning
- Lighting: The way in which the image is lit
- Colour: Colours chosen can convey messages about the product
- Graphics:devices that portray messages to the audience e.g: Logos,Insignia and graphical representations
- Post Production Techniques: Manipulation and changes made to still photographs to create a desires effect
- Semiotics: The language of codes and signs
- Connotation: A meaning associated with a sign
- Denotation: The literal or common-scene meaning of a sign
- Polysemic: A sign with multiple meanings
- Mise-en-scene: everything that appears within a frame
- Symbol: A sign that suggests another idea beyond the denotation
- Clothing
- Expression
- Gestures
- Technique
- Colours
- Images
- Graphics
- Iconography (Objects that have meaning)
Key term: Page 21
- Tabloid: refers to the dimension of a newspaper
- Hyperbole: Exaggerated language to create a dramatic effect
- Ellipsis: Where sentences are left incomplete and instead finished with three dots
- Colloquialism: Informal expressions used more in casual conversation rather than writing
Language:
- Lexis: The actual words
- Language features: Certain types of media language are used by media products for a specific purpose
- Advertisements: Often use exaggerated language to make what they are promoting seem new and exciting
- Magazines: Often imply urgency and importance for their products
- Register: The range of language used within a product
- Hybrid Genres: Media texts that include features from more than one genre
- Sub-Genre: A smaller category within a larger genre
- Story Arc: The way in which the narrative progresses from beginning to end
- Formulaic structure: Where text has a clear structure and rarely changes
Modes of address:
- Informal mode of address: e.g: Magazines and young people
- Formal mode of address: e.g: Newspapers and sophisticated audiences
- Direct mode of address: e.g: television presenters
- Indirect mode of address: e.g: television and films
Genres:
- Narrative: The plot/story arc is how the story is told
- Characters: Stock characters that help establish the genre
- Iconography and setting: Allows information to be conveyed quickly to the audience
- Technical codes: Many genres have specific editing/filming styles that distinguish it from others
- Audio codes: often paired with technical codes, it can introduce and distinguish the genre
Key terms: page 28
- Contexts: aspects around a product that may effect its meaning, e.g: distribution, circulation, reception
- Representation: the ways in which media represents the world and aspects of it, e.g: Class, race, recent events
- Stereotypes: A construction where characters traits are over exaggerated to make them easily recognisable
- Encode: Communicating a message through a system of signs
- Decoding: The process in which an audience interprets a message
Key terms: Page 29
- Selection: What is chosen to be included by the creators of the product
Key terms: Page 30
- Editorial: the part of a newspaper written supposedly by the editor who comments the day's stories
- Blog: A regularly updated website or web page, usually posted by a single person or group
- Vlog: A blog in video form, short for video blog
Context and purpose
it is important to understand representation in terms of context and purpose, the representation may have different meanings in different contexts and be interpreted differently by audiences, e.g: stereotypes in comedy vs stereotypes in drama.
Self-Representation
New media offers a range of opportunity for self-representation, the choices made about how to self construct yourself and choose how people see you in videos and photos, means that we can choose how people see you, unlike in real life, e.g: selfies, or vloggers like Zoella and Alfie Deyes
Key Theorists:
- Stuart Hall (Stereotypes and representation)
- David Guantlett (Anatomy of the audience)
Key Terms: Page 31
- Aspriational: Aimed at or appealing to people who want to improve an aspect of their lives
Women
The representation of women has developed and adapted to reflect cultural and sociological changes, although women's roles in society have changed there are still some stereotypes based upon how men see them, for instance women still tend to be judged on there looks and appearance foremost, media also concentrates on women's sexuality and emotions, and story lines tend to be based around relationships.
Key terms: Page 32
- Masculinity: The state of 'being a man' which can change as a society changes
- New Man: A term that describes a new era of masculinity
Men
Stereo-typically, men are represented differently in media than women and similarly to women theory representation has also changed in order to address changes within society, their has been many cries that masculinity is in crisis and with the era of the new man representation of masculinity has changed but not fully, even with the changes representation of men in media mainly focuses on:
- Body image and physique
- Physical strength
- Sexual attractiveness and relationships with women
- Power and independence
- Ethnicity: Your cultural identity demonstrated through: Customs, food, dress etc.
- Race: Being a descendent of a common ancestor giving a person certain characteristics: e.g: skin colours or facial features
- Tokenism: Providing a cursory or superfical representation of a underrepresented group
Ethnicity
- Representation of other cultures across media has changed from earlier years
- However people from other cultures may be defined by their differences and their 'otherness'
- There are stereotypical representations of ethnicity, defined generally by racial characteristics
- Stereotypes, misrepresentation and under-representation can have dangerous effects as it may be the only introduction to other ethnicity and cultures that some people may have
- Black and Asian people are often represented as being exotic in some texts
- Young black people have been presented as linked to violence and gang culture in news programmes and the press
- Tokenism often occurs with representation to ethnic minorities
- There has been criticism for some shows using stereotypes: e.g: Citizen Khan
- Ethnic minorities are presented more positively in some areas of the music industry.
Key terms: Page 34
- Issue: An important matter or topic that is of public concern
- Event: Something that occurs or is about to occur and is of interest to an audience: e.g: Royal wedding, Olympics, Beer Festival
- Dominant Ideology: A set of values that have a broader social or cultural currency
- Opinion Leaders: Those in positions of power who aim an audience of their point of view
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